Season Opener • Dartmouth opens up its 2013-14 season at home for the second straight year, having beaten Maine last year on this court, 67-54. The Big Green have not lost a home opener that also served as the season opener since 1998-99.• In the first 112 seasons of Dartmouth basketball, the program has posted an 85-37 record in season openers. The Big Green’s longest winning streak (15) on opening day came from the 1929-30 through the 1943-44 seasons.• In last year’s victory over Maine, Gabas Maldunas poured in 25 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked four shots en route to earning the Ivy League Player of the Week award.• Head coach Paul Cormier is an even 5-5 in season openers at Dartmouth. He won his first four, then dropped five straight, thanks to playing Virginia, Boston College, Richmond, Providence and Rutgers in those games. He got off the schneid with last year’s triumph.

Meet Your Big Green• For the second straight year, the Dartmouth roster averages less than one year of college basketball experience (14 seasons among the 15 on the team — average of 0.93). Last year, the Big Green were the second youngest team in Division I with an average of just 0.73 years.• For the first time since 2008-09, Dartmouth has a returning player who was a member of an All-Ivy team. Gabas Maldunas was a second-team honoree as a sophomore.• A total of 10 letterwinners return to the squad this year, including the entire starting lineup from the last month of last season. The top five scorers are back in Maldunas (11.4 ppg), Alex Mitola (11.3), Connor Boehm (8.7), Tyler Melville (7.5) and John Golden (7.3).• The lone upperclassmen are Melville, the senior captain of the squad, Maldunas and Golden. Nearly half of the 15 players on the roster are sophomores (7).

Series vs. Lyndon State• This is just the second time these two schools are squaring off on the hardwood. Dartmouth won the first meeting, 83-54, on Dec. 13, 2009.• None of the current players were on either team, but last year’s captain, Matt LaBove, started the game as a rookie and chipped in six points in 12 minutes of action.• This is the first time head coach Paul Cormier will go up against Lyndon State.

Scouting the Hornets• Lyndon State won an exhibition game against the University of Quebec at Montreal, 85-78.• The Hornets shot 56 percent for the game, and four of their five starters scored in double figures, led by star Howard Lyles with 18 points, 10 of which came at the charity stripe.• With no player on the roster taller than 6-5, and 10 of the 16 6-1 or shorter, it is no surprise LSC was outrebounded, 35-26.• Last year the Hornets posted a 12-14 record, averaging close to 70 points a game. They lost their two top scorers, but George Carle is back after putting up 11.5 ppg and 7.3 rpg. Lyles played in only six games and averaged close to 10 points per game.

Preseason PollThe Dartmouth Big Green were pegged to duplicate their 2012-13 finish — tied for sixth — in the preseason media poll. Two-time defending champion Harvard was a unanimous choice by the media to win the conference crown with all 17 first-place votes. Coming off a 6-8 injury-riddled season, Penn was predicted to finish second, followed by Yale and Princeton.

All-Ivy Omen?Junior Gabas Maldunas was named to the All-Ivy Second Team last year, making him the first Big Green player since 2008-09 to return to the team after making one of the All-Ivy teams. In the 2007-08 campaign, Alex Barnett ’09 was honored on the second team, like Maldunas, as a junior and returned the following year to earn Ivy League Player of the Year honors? Could that award be in Maldunas’ grasp?

Young But ExperiencedDartmouth may have just three upperclassmen on the roster in senior Tyler Melville, and juniors John Golden and Gabas Maldunas, but just about every player that saw significant action last year is back on the court in 2013-14. The top five scorers return from last year, and 1,546 of the 1,719 points (90 percent) recorded last year are back in the fold this year, including 153 of the 159 three-pointers.

Three-Point BomberLast year, Alex Mitola set a Dartmouth freshman record by draining 65 three-point field goals for the season. He’s going to have to increase his production if he wants the sophomore record of 83, set by Greg Buth ’01 in 1998-99. The all-time Big Green three-point record? Held by none other than Jim Barton ’89, who just missed the century mark with 98 as a senior in 1988-89.

Man of StealAlthough he averaged just 16.5 minutes a game as a rookie, Malik Gill made quite an impact with his quickness at the defensive end. He finished second in the Ivy League with 50 steals, matching his assist total. Only four players in Dartmouth history had pilfered the ball more times than Gill last year, including Kenny Mitchell ’97 twice. Each of the players ahead of Gill on that list played at least twice as many minutes per game.

Oh Captain my CaptainThe players have voted, and they have settled upon the lone senior in Tyler Melville to serve as captain for the 2013-14 season. The native of Plano, Texas, has played in 84 of the 86 games during his tenure, scoring a total of 566 points (6.7 avg.). He also has 112 assists and 45 steals for the Big Green, and last year set personal highs for shooting accuracy, both from the floor and the charity stripe.

Dartmouth Breeding GroundWhen Dartmouth needs a player, it seems that Northfield Mt. Hermon is to where the Big Green turn. Junior John Golden spent a postgrad year there and was joined last year by former NMH teammate Tommy Carpenter. This year, freshman Mike Fleming gives the Green a third NMH grad on the roster. Four other players from the school have graced the Dartmouth roster in the past four years; Jvonte Brooks ’15 and David Rufful ’12 took a year at the school located just a few miles south of the New Hampshire border in Massachusetts, while Clive Weeden ’11 and Josh Riddle ’12 also played there.

Ivy League LegacySenior Tyler Melville belongs to a legacy of Ivy League success as his father, Randy, was a two-time All-Ivy first-team performer for the Princeton Tigers from 1978-81. As a senior, the elder Melville co-captained Princeton to an Ivy League title and finished his career with 775 points and 444 rebounds, leading the team in scoring as a junior and rebounding each of his final two seasons.